In The End | Novella | Beginning of the End

shop but she didn’t come back. That was hours ago.”
“It’s okay,” I said, the first words that came into my head even though everything I’d seen made me think the opposite.
“Why are those soldiers putting up a fence around the village?” he said, and for a moment I thought about the question. Why was that the first question he asked and not why those soldiers were shooting at people?
But then I realised what he’d said. I’d been right. That is what they were trying to do. “Can you see from upstairs?” I said.
Tommy nodded, looking behind me.
Crawling along the floor, I checked back to make sure he followed. Reaching the hallway, I rose to my feet, bounding up the stairs. At first I ran to the left and a room looking out on the back garden. I didn’t rush right up to the window; instead, I held my arms wide at my sides so Tommy wouldn’t either. Taking slow steps, I stood as far back as I could from the net curtains covering the glass, stopping when I had an unobstructed view.
The soldiers were building a wall around the village to stop anyone getting out. They didn’t think there were survivors and weren’t giving anyone a chance to tell them otherwise. Soon there would be no getting out and they’d condemn everyone inside.
But not me. They wouldn’t keep me trapped, but I had to do something before they finished encircling the village. I had to make a run for it.
The fence had already lengthened towards the house so quickly in the past few minutes and I jumped at the sight of something moving to the right, calming when I saw it was another lorry dropping off more panels. Two masked soldiers stood on the back and scanned the view with the muzzles of their rifles raised.
I turned, beckoning for Tommy to follow, and as I did, I looked along the fence to the left. It stretched out as far as I could see. I would have to be quick to get to the woods before they blocked us in. If that happened, I knew we wouldn’t last much longer.
Running out of the room, I noticed for the first time Tommy still stood in his camouflage pyjamas. “Get dressed. Keep away from the window. Make sure you grab some shoes,” I said.
He looked at me, holding there for a second before peering down to my ragged slippers. “My dad’s shoes might fit you.”
Pausing for a moment, I thought on his words, nodding when I realised what he’d said and how much I wanted to get something more substantial on my feet. I looked back, watching him frown.
“What?” I said when he hadn’t voiced the question I could tell he was desperate to ask.
“Shall I brush my teeth?”
I couldn’t help but smile at his innocence and I nodded, watching him rush to the bathroom and something dawned on me. Shit. I would have to look after him.
Perhaps it might be better to stay in the house and push the furniture in front of the doors, then just wait for them to find out there were survivors who weren’t crazed with the infection.
I looked around the bedroom at the big furniture, thinking how I could push the wardrobe down the stairs so no one would stand a chance of moving it from the other side of the door. Tommy rushed back into the room with his toothbrush in his hand and his lips pouting.
“There’s no water in the tap.”
“Shit,” I said, watching as his brow relaxed and he smiled with his eyes wide. “Sorry. I shouldn’t swear.”
Tommy shook his head, still smiling. With no water, we couldn’t stay in the house.
Rushing across the hallway into what I guessed would have been his parents’ room, the double bed stripped of its dressing with the duvet and pillows bare, I approached the window and its view out of the opposite side of the house. Despite my caution, I let myself get nearer this time, waiting for my eyes to adjust through the net curtains.
To the right, I saw my house. I saw Steve’s car and the Ford Focus still to its side. I had a clear view of where Steve had crouched on top of the guy and half expected a body to be in the road, but in its place was a dark patch as if someone had thrown a bucket of water to wash away the blood.
Unless the darkness was the blood.
I looked up toward the other road and the houses in the middle, sandwiched between those forming the ring around the village. I saw over most of them and apart from where the newsagent, the pub and the church blocked the view in the middle, it was easy to see the road cutting the village in two. It was easier still to see the fence almost complete on the far side.
They were trying to keep us in. I had no doubt, but where were all the neighbours? Where were the rest of the village?
Footsteps from behind made me turn and I saw Tommy closing the door of his room. I twisted back as movement in the corner of my eyes came from near my house. A figure walked past, but not on the pavement. They were right up to the brickwork. In the short front garden, they were walking strangely, like people did when they’d had way too much to drink.
A shot rang out through the air and I flinched away from the window, forcing my eyes closed.
When I opened them as the echo died, the figure lay on the grass with a new dark mark staining the brickwork of my house.
More movement pulled my attention to the left and I watched a line of soldiers marching up the street in a loose